at the Southampton Meetiy^g, 1844. 
371 
or stir the parings, and prepare them for being well wrought upon 
by the harrows. These tines are raised out of the soil by pressing 
on independent handles and levers, and may be used or not as occa- 
sion requires. The implement is simple, and its price moderate. 
Subsoil-Pulverizers. — Nearly all the varieties of this class 
which had appeared at previous meetings of the Society were 
again exhibited. The weight, unwieldiness, and cost of them, 
together with the difficulty experienced in their management, and 
the strength of team required to do the work — indifferently and 
irregularly as it has hitherto been accomplished — have set great 
obstacles to the adoption of a complete underworking and pulve- 
rization of the agricultural bed. It is acknowledged that the pro- 
cess of artificially pulverizing certain subsoils, and of admitting a 
free access of air and moisture to their interior parts, must be 
beneficial to plants, and must tend to ameliorate the texture and 
quality of the soil. Nevertheless, for the want of a simple, easily 
manageable, and moderately priced implement, this operation 
has been made rather the subject of private experiment than of 
extensive practice ; it has languished in the hands of many of its 
advocates, and been abandoned, as too troublesome or too costly, 
by many firm believers in its utility. An implement was pro- 
duced at the Derby Meeting, by Mr. John Read, of 35, Regent 
Circus, Piccadilly, London, which had not the chance of being 
there submitted to trial, but with the merits of which the writer 
shortly afterwards became fully acquainted. It reappeared at 
Southampton, and was put to the test by the judges, with several 
others, in the hard-baked soil at Mr. Spooner's farm. It is un- 
necessary to make particular mention of these latter, as no one of 
them was capable of executing even tolerable work in land so 
circumstanced. The pan, or old plough-floor, of this field had-, 
evidently, never been invaded by agricultural tools; below 6 inches 
it was as solid as centuries of ploughing and trampling can be 
conceived to have made a tenacious loam, aided by a drought 
of several weeks' duration. Mr, Read's pulverizer was put into 
the furrow opened by a plough, and set to work at about 6 inches 
under it. The effect was "perfectly beautiful' — to use the judges' 
words. The old floor was split up into fragments like broken tiles ; 
the soil was separated and pulverized, not heaved up in great masses 
and let fall again to its original berth, the common defect of the 
ponderous subsoil-ploughs : the depth was maintained invariably 
uniform, and a holder for the implement would be nearly unne- 
cessary but for the circumstance of its coining out at the end of 
a furrow and of setting in again. The uniformity of depth and 
regularity of motion are owing to the construction of the imple- 
ment, which is as simple as it is novel. A straight beam, fur- 
nished with the usual pair of handles, is carried on four wheels, 
VOL. V. 2 c 
